The Working Girls Go By Part 3

"A blooper. An M79 grenade launcher," said Ritchie. "There's the ammo." He pointed. Little sh.e.l.ls the size of chicken eggs; in regular explosive, white phosphorus and fragmentation varieties.

That's when I smiled; I made poor Ritchie nervous.

The village of Cu Chi was strictly off limits to all US armed forces personnel, so I spent my days doing what little real work I had to do and practicing my Vietnamese with mama-san and papa-san. Mama-san's seven-year-old daughter was named Hue; she was a charming little thing, one small joy in my world. When I got to know mama-san better, and my Vietnamese was better, I asked her about betel nut.

"It turns your teeth black if you chew it too much," she said. "But everyone puts it out for the guests at weddings."

I nodded. "What if someone says they want to chew it with you?" I asked.

She looked at me uncomfortably. "If two people share it, they are married, or brother and sister, or they are lovers. It is a sign of loyalty."

I spent my evenings and nights on top of the bunker watching the war, trying to stop thinking about Tuyen, or inside Ilikai East, the EM club next door, doing the same thing. But I could never stop thinking about her and what might have happened if I had gone home with her that night.

I couldn't get over the feeling that if I had, she would still have been alive.

After a while, I quit going anywhere except to the PX to pick up my cigarette and whiskey rations, and to buy stuff to trade for whiskey. I went on the dispatch runs, taking what had become my blooper, but I wouldn't even walk around the chain-link fence to Ilikai. Hutch only made me work 0800 to 1700 weekdays; all the rest of the time was mine.

I worked on my tan, drank, practiced the knife, drank, slept, drank, did my job, drank, counted the days, and drank. Sometimes I ate, usually C-rations. I sent money to Mrs. Ky and painted my room black.

Later, Vietnamization came to Cu Chi. Ilikai closed, along with the other EM clubs, pizza joints, restaurants, even the barber shops. An extended Vietnamese family moved into the Ilikai building, giving me more people to practice Vietnamese with. We started to tear down the 369th Detachment. The plan was to send back everything of value and leave the hooch and the chain-link fence for the ARVNs. Even the toilets went, luckily not till I was very short. I did the packing lists, and I guess Hutch liked the job I did, because he w.a.n.gled me the promotion I might have had if I'd stayed in Vung Tau.

I heard from Cherry. It was just a short note, to say he was on his way home and by the way, the First Sergeant had died visiting a wh.o.r.ehouse in Saigon a few weeks before. He didn't know any details, but Tan had thought I'd want to know. He said look him up in the states, but didn't give an address. I felt a small, warm glow inside. Or maybe it was the whiskey. I never heard about the barber, but I knew.

The next time I heard anything, I was back in the world myself, and it was a different story. On the Freedom Bird, I'd met another Spec 5, Bob Tucker, also headed for Chicago. He was big and sweet and gentle; I couldn't begin to scare him. I had to admit I liked that. I got the idea that he could save me. He loved me; I liked him well enough; we got married. He didn't even try to get me to change my name. A month after that, he was sent to Ft. Lewis, Was.h.i.+ngton, while I went to Ft.

Monmouth, New Jersey. It would be at least a year before we could both be in Chicago.

In the meantime, there were plenty of bars with plenty of girls near Ft.

Monmouth, where I tried to think about Bob when I was drinking. I wasn't good at it; I found myself watching the working girls, thinking about Tuyen and the Sunset Grill and about what I had taken away from 'nam. Mama-san had my address; I had her promise to write and this vast raw wound inside me. Nice girls didn't fall in love with other girls.

Did they? I knew they didn't let their sweethearts die.

One evening, late, I overheard a couple of Signal REMFs talking about Vung Tau. "I heard that a.s.shole got fragged," one said. "The top kick from h.e.l.l," said the other. Top kick in h.e.l.l, I hoped.

I wanted cheap rotgut whiskey and a Bau Muoi Ba; all I had was Early Times and Bud. I wondered where I could find betel nut in Jersey.

Glossary Hue; woman's name, p.r.o.nounced "hwey", to rhyme with "whey"

Mai: woman's name, p.r.o.nounced like "My"

PFC: Private First Cla.s.s (E3) E1, E2 ... E9: Enlisted ranks, E1 being the lowest, E9 the highest SP4-8: Enlisted ranks E4-E8, but "Specialist". Most REMFS were "Specialists", or "Spec", p.r.o.nounced "speck," instead of hard-stripers. Hard stripes were reserved for those in positions of command WAC: Women's Army Corps REMF: Rear Echelon Mother f.u.c.kers. Support personnel not engaged in actual fighting Signal REMF: REMF in the Signal Corps Beaucoup, often written "bookoo" or "boocoo": French loan word, meaning big, large, much, etc.

d.i.n.ky-dau: crazy RVN: Republic of Vietnam ARVN: Army of the Republic of Vietnam. The "good" guys, the ones we were helping to fight off the Commie Menace VC: Viet Cong. The "bad" guys. A.k.a Victor Charlie, Charlie HQ: Headquarters CO, XO: Commanding Officer, Executive Officer LBJ: Long Binh Jail. A sprawling prison compound in Long Binh (near Saigon) where the conditions were rumoured to be somewhat less aesthetic than Andersonville Long Binh, Bien Hoa: Suburbs of Saigon Cu Chi: Thirty-five kilometres from Saigon; famous today because of the tunnels Tan Son Nhut: Airbase near Saigon, where many troops entered the country. Cam Ranh Bay, north of Saigon, was another popular entry point MP: Military Police White Mice: ARVN Military Police, so called because of their s.h.i.+ny white helmets Hooch, hootch: barracks, usually divided into rooms. Lots of screening to allow airflow Gecko: insect-eating lizard which frequented hooches and most other non-airconditioned buildings Saigon Tea: non-alcoholic drink designed to look like whiskey Freedom Bird: the plane that took you back to the world from incountry Incountry: in Vietnam World: The US; everything that was good and peaceful and not full of military bulls.h.i.+t; also, "The land of the big PX"

Lifer: upper enlisted ranks; distinct from career soldiers. One common definition: "Lifers are like flies. They eat s.h.i.+t and bother people"

Career soldier: enlisted, staying in the military for 20 or 30 years to get the pension, but not a.s.sholes like the lifers. Sgt. Hutch, in the story, is a career soldier First Sergeant: Highest enlisted man in company or battalion, at least an E-8. A.k.a. top kick, or just Top. Often having more real power than the CO or XO, good ones also knew more about running the company/battalion. Bad ones were known to destroy the units Bau Muoi Ba: Brand of Vietnamese beer MPC: Military Pay Certificates. Monopoly money-like subst.i.tute issued by Armed Services in Vietnam in an effort to cut down the black market traffic in greenbacks. The only real effect was to drive up the value of greenbacks. Five to ten times the face value of a greenback really was a reasonable expectation; even more if you took it in Vietnamese money, which honestly didn't do you much good on a military base, except to pay the mama-sans Mama-san, papa-san, baby-san: Vietnamese who worked in the hooches, doing laundry, ironing, boot polis.h.i.+ng, yardwork and so on. Baby-san didn't mean an actual baby, simply the youngest of the mama-sans.

Also called hooch girls.

PX, BX: Post Exchange, Base Exchange. Military-run monopoly stores.

Cigarettes were $2 per carton at the PX, when they were going for $4.50 to $5.50 in the world Rations, Ration card: you got six cartons of cigarettes, six bottles of hard liquor and either four or six cases of beer per month.

Rations were traded and were valuable commodities FNG: f.u.c.kin' New Guy. Whoever was most recently arrived Short: A tour was 365 days. You started counting down the day you arrived incountry, but not until you were at least half-way through with your tour could you speak of how short you were without getting razzed unmercifully GI: Government Issue; a soldier. Dating from at least WWII, and probably earlier Ilikai East: Service club in Cu Chi, named after a famous Hawaiian restaurant and night club EM club: Enlisted Men's bar; same as service club Round-eye: non-asian woman. Never applied to men.

Deuce-and-a-half: 2-1/2 ton truck Boom-boom: s.e.xual intercourse C-Rations, Cs: canned meals meant for emergencies or consumption in the bush. Often better than what you could get in mess halls Number one: the best Number ten: the worst klick: slang for kilometre Huey: the archetypal helicopter from the Vietnam war, the Bell UH-1 gook: racist term applied to all Vietnamese, whether VC or ARVN

I. Van Laningham is a software engineer who helped create the Y2K bug before serving in the military from 1968-1971. Stationed in Vietnam all of 1970, Van witnessed the beginning of Vietnamization. After active duty, Laningham majored in Anthropology at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle and later worked for the US Postal Service, built musical instruments, became a joat for a mobile home park and sold books, returning to computers only in 1981 where Van has been ever since. Van lives in Salt Lake City.